snag is at work they only want to run 11g and WPA (Apple airport extreme) on their wireless lan for security; there's only a vague chance they would drop it down to 802.11b (if the Senior Sysadmin decides to get an iPaq with wlan)... but will definitely stick with WPA.

I would get murdered if I put up my own access point (and rightly so!), so I'd have to use bluetooth, which is OK for surfing but not for file transfer.

I would be happy to choose ANY rom, and I have quite a lot of experience with linux and 802.11~ from hacking together an access point with the Keith Smith OpenSTA/OpenAP stuff on a eumitcom single board computer, so am not afraid of getting my hands dirty!